Chapter 6
Shane
“Good morning, Alpha.”
The she-wolf under my sheets purred around my length. She worked beneath the thin layer, a desperate heat between my legs. I didn’t bother removing the covers—I didn’t care to see her. It was more pleasurable when I didn’t.
My skull was silent. My beast had retreated again to that cold, hollow place he went whenever I touched someone who wasn’t her.
Beka had been around two years before any of this—her presence wasn’t the problem.
She stopped being enough. I still didn’t have a word for what that was. I didn’t want one.
He wouldn’t share this skin with a stranger; he was waiting for a ghost.
I needed this. After I had lost control and given into my need for her—I was starving. I could still taste her on my tongue. Beka was just the stand-in for a void that had Adea’s name carved into the bottom.
I closed my eyes and forced the image to form.
I imagined Adea’s long brown hair tangled in my hands, her soft cheek pressed against my thighs.
In the dark of my mind, it was her lips around me, her throat squeezing my tip until the pressure was unbearable.
I reached down, gripping her head through the fabric, and thrust my hips to force her deeper.
She gagged around my length, tears spilling down her cheeks onto my pelvic bone for my own twisted pleasure.
“Yes,” I hissed as her tongue lapped at the thickening ridge of my knot. I chased the high, envisioning Adea swallowing me down, taking every drop of the poison I carried. I tipped my head back against the headboard and moaned her name as I came.
“Adea.”
Hands gripped my thighs, nails digging into my skin in a sharp, sudden protest, but I held her head down until I was empty.
When I finally let go, Beka shot upright, sheets falling away to reveal her flushed, appalled face. I kept my eyes on the ceiling, refusing to grant her a glance. Her gaze burned holes into the side of my head.
“You’re such an ass,” she seethed, her voice trembling with a mix of arousal and stinging humiliation.
She had a small scar below her left ear—barely visible, silver-white against her skin. I’d never asked where it came from. It had been two years, and I still didn’t know a single thing about her that she hadn’t offered up trying to keep my attention.
“You’re dismissed,” I said, already done with her.
She reeled back, stung. “You moaned another’s name as you spilled down my throat! Are you fucking serious right now, Shane?”
I sighed, sitting up and brushing a stray blond hair from Beka’s face. I’d been using her for two years. The only reason I kept her around was because she was a good lay, and she had feelings for me—which made her easy to manipulate—but she was a quick fix for a chronic problem.
She wasn’t the one I saw when I closed my eyes.
Adea was everything I’d ever wanted. Beka was nothing more than a placeholder.
“You’ve pleased your Alpha,” I said, my voice dismissive. “Now get out.”
She huffed, sticking out her bottom lip in a desperate bid for a kiss I wasn’t going to give. She slid off the bed and pulled her dress over her tits, her movements slow and performative. She reached over the dresser for her phone, purposely arching her back to flash me.
My cock twitched. My wolf didn’t want her, but I wanted to dominate something.
“You want me to mount you?” I murmured, sliding off the bed.
I walked toward her. She flipped around and instantly lowered her head, offering me her neck in a pathetic display of submission. I grabbed her hip, pinning her against the wood, and slid my fingers into her heat. She was already wet, her body craving me even as I insulted her.
“No, Alpha. I only—”
I didn’t let her finish. I slid two fingers into her, watching them disappear into her warmth. She whimpered instead.
“Shut up,” I hissed against her skin.
When she succumbed, I pumped my fingers in and out, hard and fast, listening to the wet sounds of her arousal. I could feel the ridge of my knot thickening, the biological drive to claim overriding my disgust. I stood up, positioning my tip at her opening.
“Beka,” I murmured.
“Yes, Alpha,” she panted, trying to push her ass back against me. I gripped her waist, holding her still.
“I am your Alpha.”
“You are my Alpha,” she moaned, her hips gyrating in a mindless search for relief.
“And I will call you whatever I want,” I growled. I slid my tip up and down her slit, teasing her until she was sobbing for it. “Be obedient. Take what I give you. Can you do that for me?”
She was quiet for a heartbeat before she broke. “Yes, Alpha. Just please… fuck me.”
I buried myself in her with one violent thrust that sent the dresser slamming against the wall. She screamed out in pleasure, her body bouncing off the wood with every heavy strike. I didn’t care about the noise. I didn’t care about the bruises I was leaving on her hips.
“This pussy is mine, Adea,” I growled, the lie fueling my rhythm.
“All yours,” Beka panted. I felt her clenching around me, her walls squeezing my cock as she hit her peak.
“Fuck, Adea,” I moaned as I chased my own climax. I thrust into her a few more times, emptying my seed into her with a final, territorial shove.
I stepped back immediately, grabbing a towel and walking toward the bathroom without a second glance.
“I’m going to shower. Get out. And make sure no one sees you.”
I closed the door on her first sob. It didn’t move me. Nothing moved me unless it had long brown hair and a name that started with A.
My father held the title, but I held the leash.
The shower ran cold before I got in. I stood under it anyway. I’d been taking what I could get. My wolf chuffed from the depths of my mind. I was an Alpha who couldn’t make his own beast cooperate.
She hated me. I’d made sure of it. It was easier that way—easier to be the thing she feared than the thing she’d never choose. At least fear kept her close.
At least fear, I understood.